1. Technical Field
This invention relates to refrigeration systems and, more particularly, to an improved refrigeration system for providing users with an easy and convenient means of providing cooling to a building HVAC as well as to a multiple of low, medium and high chiller load cases.
2. Prior Art
Chillers remove heat from a liquid via a vapor-compression or absorption refrigeration cycle. A vapor-compression water chiller comprises the 4 major components of the vapor-compression refrigeration cycle (compressor, evaporator, condenser, and some form of metering device). These machines can implement a variety of refrigerants. Absorption chillers use municipal water as the refrigerant and benign silica gel as the desiccant. Absorption chillers utilize water as the refrigerant and rely on the strong affinity between the water and a lithium bromide solution to achieve a refrigeration effect.
Most often, pure water is chilled, but this water may also contain a percentage of glycol and/or corrosion inhibitors; other fluids such as thin oils can be chilled as well. In air conditioning systems, chilled water is typically distributed to heat exchangers, or coils, in air handling units, or other type of terminal devices which cool the air in its respective space(s), and then the chilled water is re-circulated back to the chiller to be cooled again. These cooling coils transfer sensible heat and latent heat from the air to the chilled water, thus cooling and usually dehumidifying the air stream. A typical chiller for air conditioning applications is rated between 15 to 1500 tons (180,000 to 18,000,000 BTU/h or 53 to 5,300 kW) in cooling capacity. Chilled water temperatures can range from 35 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit or 1.5 to 7 degrees Celsius, depending upon application requirements.
The chillers for industrial applications can be centralized, where each chiller serves multiple cooling needs, or decentralized where each application or machine has its own chiller. It is also possible to have a combination of both central and decentralized chillers, especially if the cooling requirements are the same for some applications or points of use, but not all. Each approach has its advantages but are individually designed and installed thus they are not efficient. In addition, none of these chiller systems are capable of providing both HVAC and chiller room cooling with a complete building approach to reduce installation and maintenance costs, save space and energy and allow a scalable configuration in case of building space and chiller rooms expansion.
Accordingly, a need remains for a system in order to overcome the above-noted shortcomings. The present invention satisfies such a need by providing an improved refrigeration system that is convenient and easy to use, lightweight yet durable in design, versatile in its applications, and designed for providing cooling to a building HVAC as well as to a multiple of low, medium and high chiller load cases.